Rather than promote general aviation and ensure that its potential is met, some politicians see it as an easy target, writes Milton Lewis. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

By Milton LewisGuest Commentary

Keeping track of over 300 head of cattle isn’t easy. Every week, I go through all 6,000 acres to make sure all our cattle are accounted for, in their proper pastures, and in healthy shape, while making sure the fields and equipment are in good condition. Doing this by truck would turn it into an all-day task, preventing me from being able to tend to my many other responsibilities as ranch manager of Bayless Ranches. By flying my Piper Super Cub, however, this is accomplished in a matter of hours.

I have been working at Bayless Ranches in Cortez for over 20 years. I admit a cattle ranch is not a typical place where one would think it is useful to have an aircraft. After flying for 41 years though, I can attest that having my own plane is invaluable for productivity and efficiency in caring for our cattle. By being able to quickly fly over our fields and notice if any of the livestock are sick or if any fences are significantly damaged, we are able to react before the ranch suffers significant losses.

The use of general aviation in an agricultural or business application is certainly not unique. Thousands of businesses of all sizes make use of small aircraft to increase productivity, survey land, deliver supplies, visit with customers, and get to multiple meetings in different cities on the same day, even in rural parts of the country where access to commercial flights is limited. All told, general aviation creates $150 billion in economic impact each year across the country and supports more than 1.2 million American jobs. In Colorado, general aviation is a $1.9 billion industry, supporting more than 22,000 jobs.Read more…

Signs welcome residents of Black Forest home along Burgess Road in Black Forest, CO on June 18. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)

By David and Tina RouthierGuest Commentary

Some people — including some letter-writers in The Denver Post — have deplored people choosing to live in areas rife with forest fires and the penalties others must pay for that decision. The entire state of Colorado is affected by forest fires and/or grass fires, yet we all choose to live here. Why? Because we love the beauty, the tenacity of the people, and the wildlife.

We chose to live in Black Forest because we were tired of living in a neighborhood where we could reach out our bedroom window and touch our neighbor’s bedroom window. Twenty six years ago, we could buy 5 acres of land relatively cheaply and could build a house that we could afford. This was our retirement home.

So we moved to a higher altitude with crisp air, 5 acres of land, and great neighbors. And we’d rather have a mortgage on a house in that area than in the city.Read more…

Hail on the corner of Colorado Boulevard and Mexico Avenue in Denver after heavy rains and hail hit the area in June 2009. (John Leyba, The Denver Post)

By Jon de VosGuest Commentary

Half the property insurance premium for every Colorado homeowner is caused by claims from people who built, and continue to build, their homes in hazardous areas. Clearly they have no problem burdening the rest of the state in their desire to live where they please.

They are either ignorant of, or callously oblivious to, the terrible risk to life and property that comes with that choice. And when the inevitable disaster strikes, they turn to the rest of Colorado for help in shouldering the burden through our own homeowner’s insurance. It is not without a great deal of forbearance that we watch as they continue to build homes, malls, car dealerships and airports right smack in the middle of Hail Alley.

The gulf between the Front Range and the Western Slope is sometimes bigger than the Continental Divide that separates us. Over here in Grand County, we used to live in a forest, but now, according to Gov. John Hickenlooper’s Task Force on Wildfire Insurance and Forest Health, we live in the Wildland-Urban Interface — also known as the WUI. The Front Range forces seem clustered and ready to tackle this newly defined problem.Read more…

Nineteen elite firefighters in Arizona — named the Granite Mountain Hotshots — were killed Sunday by a fast-moving wildfire near the town of Yarnell, northwest of Phoenix. It was the deadliest firefighting event in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001. Editorial cartoonists Bill Day, David Fitzsimons and Pat Bagley honored the 19 with these cartoons.

Over the past weeks, we all watched in sadness as wildfires in Colorado’s Black Forest raged out of control, destroying more than 500 homes and displacing nearly 40,000 people. As first responders battled the fires, critical tools that could have assisted them on the front lines — unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) — largely sat idle because of government regulations.

Unmanned aircraft could make firefighters’ jobs both easier and safer, providing them with situational awareness by flying through smoke and at night, situations too dangerous for piloted aircraft. UAS can see through smoke to identify hotspots, help forecasters predict the weather, drop fire retardants and alert authorities to people and property in harm’s way.

In spite of these obvious benefits, before a firefighter is allowed to deploy a UAS, they must first get approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. When fires are burning and spreading by the minute, this process often makes it difficult, if not impossible, to get timely approval to fly.

[media-credit name=”(AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)” align=”alignnone” width=”495″][/media-credit] A slurry bomber lays down a trail of fire retardant behind a home near the town of Beulah, Colo., in 2005. Given the focus on reining in federal spending, it’s not unfair to suggest that it’s time to tighten the rules for people building in areas that are prone to natural disasters — or at least asking them to pick up more of the tab.

Whether it’s homes built along the coast or cabins built in the woods, the federal government is increasingly being asked to pick up more of the disaster tab for Americans who choose to live in close proximity to areas where natural disasters are common.

Given the focus on reining in federal spending, it’s not unfair to suggest that it’s time to tighten the rules for people building in areas prone to natural disasters — or at least asking them to pick up more of the tab. To be clear, I’m not singling out people whose property is lot to a so-called act of God, but rather to those people who build in an area where it’s a matter of “when,” not “if” disaster strikes.

As a story in Monday’s New York Times noted: “Across the nation, tens of billions of tax dollars have been spent on subsidizing coastal reconstruction in the aftermath of storms, usually with little consideration of whether it actually makes sense to keep rebuilding in disaster-prone areas. If history is any guide, a large fraction of the federal money allotted to New York, New Jersey and other states recovering from Hurricane Sandy — an amount that could exceed $30 billion — will be used the same way.”

The story reminded me of a January report from Headwaters Economics, which put the the cost of fighting wildfires for the federal government at nearly $3 billion per year. Roughly a third of that total is spent protecting private property. The costs are only expected to increase as more people move into the wildland-urban interface and the intensity of wildfires increases due to climate change.

Lily Rottenborn, age 7, was saddened by the loss of “Hospital Bear,” a small brown bear she had received at a local hospital five years prior when suffering from a case of stomach flu. Her parents called Penrose-St. Francis Hospital to see if they had another, but were told the hospital no longer had that type of bear — they had moved on to pandas.

That’s when a physical therapist realized she had one on her desk, and gladly handed it over. Lily was ecstatic, as were the adults who could offer comfort to a young girl and a family struggling with the loss of their home.

It’s a sweet tale. And the significance of a stuffed bear to a small girl becomes more apparent when you hear what she named it: Waldo.

Today’s good news could also be bad news, but we’ll concentrate on the upside of the rain that has fallen over the state this weekend.

Yes, it has caused some local flooding and inconvenienced a good number of people.

But Colorado has needed the rain, there’s no doubt about that.

The precipitation was enough for the governor to lift the statewide fire ban over the weekend. It will be hot and dry again before too long, but while the wet weather is here let’s be thankful for the reduced fire threat and relief for farmers and the parched landscape.

Vincent Carroll is The Denver Post's editorial page editor. He has been writing commentary on politics and public policy in Colorado since 1982 and was originally with the Rocky Mountain News, where he was also editor of the editorial pages until that newspaper gave up the ghost in 2009.

Guidelines: The Post welcomes letters up to 150 words on topics of general interest. Letters must include full name, home address, day and evening phone numbers, and may be edited for length, grammar and accuracy.

To reach the Denver Post editorial page by phone: 303-954-1331

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